Ask Slashdot: What Note-Taking App Do You Use? 187
An anonymous reader writes: This column about a writer's struggle to find the perfect note-taking app resonated a lot with me. "A singular productivity tool that works for everyone is a unicorn -- beautiful, perfect, and completely fictional. Still, there has to be some sort of middle ground between an unachievable fantasy and the current landscape. I would happily settle for two, maybe three apps. Honestly, less than 10 is all I'm asking for. Until then, my phone and laptop will be a cluttered mess of productivity apps that only do half their jobs," writes Victoria Song.
Over the years, I have tried Notion, Apple Notes, the good old Windows' Notepad, Roam Research, Obsidian, Google Keep, Google Docs, and OneNote among possibly many more that I am unable to recall anymore. Some support Apple Pencil, which is one of the usecases I find useful. Roam Research did not even have a native app for mobile devices for the longest time. Some applications are good, but they don't support online syncing, or support syncing with only a particular storage service. And have you noticed just how expensive some of these apps could get? As much as $15-$30 a month! Out of curiosity, and forget my usecases -- as I admit I have not mentioned many -- how do you maintain your notes for work and personal life. (I have been using physical notepads a lot more in recent months but would like an app for digital notes.)
Over the years, I have tried Notion, Apple Notes, the good old Windows' Notepad, Roam Research, Obsidian, Google Keep, Google Docs, and OneNote among possibly many more that I am unable to recall anymore. Some support Apple Pencil, which is one of the usecases I find useful. Roam Research did not even have a native app for mobile devices for the longest time. Some applications are good, but they don't support online syncing, or support syncing with only a particular storage service. And have you noticed just how expensive some of these apps could get? As much as $15-$30 a month! Out of curiosity, and forget my usecases -- as I admit I have not mentioned many -- how do you maintain your notes for work and personal life. (I have been using physical notepads a lot more in recent months but would like an app for digital notes.)
PostIt (Score:5, Funny)
Re:PostIt (Score:5, Interesting)
Uni-Ball Signo gel ink pen and Leuchtturm Medium A5 notebook.
What is this "app" you speak of?
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When I get round to doing something about the note, I make the addendum to whichever continuing project it belonged to, or maybe start a new project, ripping the pages / post-its out of the notebook as the ideas go into the appropriate fil
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That is actually really clever. So you write in whichever notebook is handy, then organize the pages afterwards? That would solve my problems around taking notes on various topics at work, plus noting down comedy material outside of work and TODOs all the time.
How do you store the pages after they are ripped out and categorized?
Re: PostIt (Score:2)
A black book with a ballpoint pen.
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It's not uncommon for someone to make a comment like that, saying a notepad is good enough, or in other cases saying text files are sufficient.
A post it note or notepad can't copy a recipe and make changes while retaining the original. It can't help you insert a step in the middle or let you move the liquid steps to the beginning and the solid steps to the end.
The case against plain text files is harder, but I want to:
- format lists with multiple levels of nesting
- add headers that act as an index
- add hype
vimwiki (Score:2)
https://www.vim.org/scripts/sc... [vim.org]
Easy to search, simple to edit, apparently infinite levels of subheadings, can be read on anything since it's all just plain text files.
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emacs org mode.
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Been doing it this way for decades. Very reliable and doesn't need any fancy storage. Often things are still in registers from other edits to put inline with notes.
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Welp, went to the link to see what this amazing tool looks like in action, and all of the screenshots are broken. If you are trying to sell folks on a note-taking tool that does everything and is free, you might want to find one that has its act together.
And this is kindof par for the course for old-ass tools that work for some people, but which have a lot of failings for the vast majority of everyday users and which is not intuitive. For fuck's sake I'd rather pull out a typewriter to take notes before b
ConnectedText until I can't anymore (Score:2)
plain text, on windows w/ Notepad++ (Score:2)
They all suck, one way or another (Score:2)
So I always end up just falling back to using BBEdit (it's not great for the purpose either, but I typically have it open most of the time).
Hard Cover Notebook and Pen (Score:5, Interesting)
Harder to lose, data doesn't corrupt easily. Extensible, I can buy another one when the first fills up. Writing notes with a pen helps me retain the info in my brain better. I can draw pictures much more easily and quickly if I need to. And it never goes obsolete because someone decides they don't want to make them anymore or that you need to buy a new version.
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Exactly. Plus, using a notebook gives you something to hold in a meeting in case you don't know what to do with your empty hands, like I do most of the time.
Also, some people will think that you are more professional and experienced if you stick to the pen & paper approach. They'll think that you've been in this business for so long that you had been using a stone abacus until they invented notebooks in the 20th year of your career.
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You can look at the meeting maker if you want attendees. I use notes to actually record information in the meeting.
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My aren't you clever. People jacking around with applications in meetings are the ones who aren't actually paying attention to the meetings. Maybe like you. It's how I can tell the people who aren't relevant.
Re: Hard Cover Notebook and Pen (Score:2)
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My old boss did this, claimed it was to show others that she was paying attention and not, say, leaving rude comments on YouTube instead.
Of course this is not an option for those of us who can't read our own handwriting later.
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And it never goes obsolete because someone decides they don't want to make them anymore or that you need to buy a new version.
Exactly: If I will need to share with others later then creating a plain text file with Emacs* works well. Simple structuring: start new ideas on new lines, don't waste time getting spelling or grammar correct (tidy up later).
*: other text editors are available.
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I find pen and paper much easier to lose than any cloud synced notebook I can edit from anywhere with any device. Also I've yet to corrupt any digital file, but I get my pen and paper wet every so often and find it doesn't work well.
It is cheap though.
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You can get ones that have marks in the corners of the pages to help you scan them with your phone camera. Then you can keep and search them, access them anywhere.
Plain text files ? (Score:3, Interesting)
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No cloud support, no pen support, no intelligent way of laying out or grouping notes.
Vim is a great text editor, but it's not a note-taking app. Your post is like someone asking what the best pickup truck is, and you saying "What's wrong with a bicycle?"
Fundamentally nothing is wrong with it, other than it completely fails to meet the use case.
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Whats wrong with vi (or one of the enhanced versions of it). Gives you files that can be processed by readily available tools.
vi is a text editor. It’s the Swiss Army knife of the text world. It’s great. A Swiss Army knife covers the vast majority of everyday use cases for the vast majority of people, but I wouldn’t expect a general contractor to use a Swiss Army knife to build a house; I’d expect them to use specialized tools. A note taking app is a specialized tool. It may superficially resemble a text editor, and it may even operate on the same plaintext files, but because of its narrow focus it can spec
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The drawbacks of plain text files:
- no ability to insert images. Instead of inserting a screenshot, I'd have to write out e.g. a screenful of settings I want to record.
- no ability to insert styled text, useful for keeping snippets that have to be used in styled-text apps.
- Text only means limited options for dividing a file into sections
- no hyperlinks
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I had such file on my QWERTY phone [planetcom.co.uk] and I was rather logging into the phone (which has static IPv6 thanks to openvpn and a VPS as the other openvpn end).
But I recently gave up on it as all the QWERTY phones suck, they do not make a QWERTY phone with hardware quality comparable to the regular phone market.
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QWERTY is perfect for phones - but last time on 9000i Communicator [medium.com] (later Communicators were already crap). That was that time the most expensive premium phone with full microswitch keyboard and top hardware. Nowadays all QWERTY phones have unreliable cheap membrane keyboard, poor CPU/hardware and they are also just in the middle-price range (despite with low volume production, therefore in fact a low-price range manufacturing cost).
When the touch-screen is so perfect drop your PC/Mac QWERTY keyboard and s
Yahoo Notepad (Score:2)
Keep my stuff on Yahoo Notepad. Plus: it is accessible from anywhere, even when I am traveling.
As a safety measure, have some omissions in the list of passwords, which hopefully only I do know how to restore to an actual value.
Simplenote is decent (Score:2)
Simplenote continues to work for me as a notes system.
https://simplenote.com/ [simplenote.com]
Joplin is also worth looking at:
https://joplinapp.org/ [joplinapp.org]
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Good luck!
Try Logseq (Score:2)
If you've used Obsidian and Roam, try Logseq. It feels like them, but fully open source code and file format; and you can pay for synch (supporting development) it build your own using git or Syncthing.
Plus, powerful templating, search, queries and mindmap functions, and an interesting variety of plugins even in this early stage.
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Looking at their web site front page, they have a "pricing" link at the top as the first thing I see. That's why I have never even looked at what they offer. I am not interested in getting my data locked in behind yet another paywall.
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Sync is cloud-based and paid. But the app is open source, on github, and local-first. No possibility of lock-in behind a paywall if you do your own sync (git, syncthing, or whatever you like).
several of them (Score:3)
Pen, paper, plaintext (Score:3)
For on the fly note-to-self stuff, pen scribbles on paper.
Anything else, plaintext. I'll use BBedit (just because I have it around) on the mac, or vi on linux.
My filofax... (Score:2)
For notes and appointments shared with family or coworkers we use large A4 or A3 sheets with custom printed columns. We have LibreOffice macros to prepare calendars with recurring events preprogrammed, while for sharing notes we have large sheets divided in row and columns, where we can attach small post-it sheets of different colours to identify who wrote the note. No need for apps...
I want the same thing, here goes.. (Score:4, Insightful)
Basically I want a physical notebook that I can copy electronic content into and build links between the pages. I'm really surprised there is nothing like that. I think a lot better when I handwrite and when the page markings are only a guideline, not a rule.
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Also, I feel like an iPad with an Apple Pen is key to all of this, but I have yet to find any app that works on iOS that is this flexible.
I'm on my third Samsung Galaxy Note now. The ability to write with the S-pen is key, I'm much faster at that than 2 finger typing (though you can type notes in the default Samsung Notes app as well). It's like having a real pen and paper notebook in my pocket all the time, and I can easily print off my handwritten notes if I want an actual paper copy.
I hear Samsung my kill the Note line, but as long as they still have a high end phone with a big screen that can use a stylus that will be good enough for
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The Brain (3D Mind Mapping Tool) (Score:2)
Very good for brainstorming!!!
Needs better import and export so it could be used for inventory (i.e. flat file stuff).
Needs scheduling
It's a little spendy...
EMACS and org mode (Score:3)
Solves some of the problems, but doesn't try to solve all of them. Why does your note interface developer need to also develop a global sync infrastructure? Ick.
Use it in a git repo, and you've got your synchronization layer, as complex or simple as you want it to be.
Smooth transitions to clean HTML or PDF presentation if you desire.
All the real-computer platforms taken care of, and several stabs at phone environments.
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Emacs user here since the mid-'80s. I wish I could use org-mode for my notes, but logseq (org-based) is faster, nicer looking, fully mobile, and supports seamless editable block-level transclusion which is huge for me (along with other nice-to-haves like whiteboards) and a large set of JS-based plugins. Still I do switch into emacs for any serious editing, query-replace, etc. of my notes. What I miss: executable src blocks, org-mode's exports, and of course all the power of emacs itself.
Email (Score:3)
Since no one else has said it yet: Email. I email my note (shopping list, whatever) to myself from my computer, and my phone's imap client picks it up, so now I have my note in my "private cloud", full-text indexed, searchable and organized by date.
Re: Email (Score:2)
Yes, funny that people did not mention that before..
Works for me and you can include attachments
Kids and their "apps" these days (Score:3)
echo "text" >> filename
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cat >> filename
I'm a moran
^D
some 'ok' options. (Score:2)
google's keep has been really solid for long term notes.
I also use apple notes for short term things so that they'll 'survive' getting disconnected or a reboot where I forget what's open. they're 'handy' on phone, ipad, macbook and mac desktop, so I use it as a sort of persistent clipboard.
I was using notepad++ on windows since it saves things but I do a lot of work on different computers so need something that syncs. Also, finding notes is a bit of an issue in notepad++.
I'm not in love with google keep b
Zim (Score:4, Informative)
I am trying "Zim a desktop wiki" https://zim-wiki.org/ [zim-wiki.org] it is essentially notepad++ with layers of tabs (and linking). I am storing the files on OneDrive so I can access them from multiple computers.
It is not perfect - text files are flat! But Zim makes them "less flat" when I make sub-sub pages. For the time being it works better for me than onenote or notepad++, but I may change my mind depending on this thread :-)
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I use Joplin for this. It uses Markdown, unfortunately, but has the advantage of having a mobile client for Android.
It also has a web clipper. I use that instead of bookmarks, because bookmarks go stale.
It's pretty good. Markdown is the weak point, and the sync stuff is confusing, but it works for me.
Obsidian (Score:2)
Obsidian.md is the best I found.
It uses markdown files on your box, and all the meta information is calculated and available. There are graph views, lots of plugins, but it all works without as well.
If you want to use the notes for a long time and keep it searchable and highly interlinked, like your own Wiki, Obsidian's your things.
Plugins include Jupyter notebooks, it does Mermaid diagrams, ties in with Zotero, it even has an SQL database like "Dataview" plugin, does LaTeX markdown, syncs to all devices. A
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Re: Obsidian (Score:2)
Thanks!
Notes at work, Evernote otherwise (Score:2)
Re: Notes at work, Evernote otherwise (Score:2)
+1 for Evernote, though they just got bought: planning to work out my lifeboat strategy this week (binary blobs in the XML file: how to backup everything). I have the mid-priced license.
I supplement with Remember the Milk for tasks. I have the pro license. RTM is the best task app of the many I've tried.
And finally Google Calendar for appointments.
OneNote is a dumpster fire. I can't imagine why/how people put up with it.
Trilium: THERE IS NOTHING BETTER THAN (Score:2)
Trilium is the best of all note taking apps plus it is programmable (with JS). Open source and self-hosted (or run locally in docker). Cannot go wrong, trust me
https://github.com/zadam/trilium
Nextcloud (Score:2)
It is far from perfect, but I use Nextcloud for syncing and various markdown-compatible file editors. I like mind mapping, but I haven't found a good tool for that where I can do "everything" or transform views easily-- going from mind-map to list to checklist back to mind-map.
I use a spiral (Score:2)
notebook and a pen. Fast, cheap, reliable. Once the notebook is full, I scan it, and get a new one.
Misleading title (Score:5, Insightful)
The linked article is actually about some moron who wants a universal app to manage everything in his life, including when to water plants, project scheduling, and inventory control. And video conferencing. And his pantry.
Someone should tell him about Elon Musk's App X - one app to do everything. Because they both sound like they have a deep love for anything 420 and it's affected both their cognitive skills.
When I want a screwdriver, I don't want a multi-tool that's a screw driver, saw, hammer, ice pick, flashlight, spork, barbeque, power washer, generator, portable toilet, and note taker. There's efficiency in having the right tool for the right job.
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When I want a screwdriver, I don't want a multi-tool that's a screw driver, saw, hammer, ice pick, flashlight, spork, barbeque, power washer, generator, portable toilet, and note taker. There's efficiency in having the right tool for the right job.
Backwards view point. The question isn't what you want, it's what you need and what you're willing to have with you in that situation. Think cameras. I have $10k worth of photography gear. When I want to take photos, I don't want to use a multi-function device either. But when I *need* to take photos I sure as heck am happy that I always have my smartphone in my pocket.
A do everything app has its purpose. A swiss army knife has it's purpose too. There is as much efficiency as having the right tool for the r
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When I want a screwdriver, I don't want a multi-tool that's a screw driver, saw, hammer, ice pick, flashlight, spork, barbeque, power washer, generator, portable toilet, and note taker. There's efficiency in having the right tool for the right job.
Backwards view point. The question isn't what you want, it's what you need and what you're willing to have with you in that situation. Think cameras. I have $10k worth of photography gear. When I want to take photos, I don't want to use a multi-function device either. But when I *need* to take photos I sure as heck am happy that I always have my smartphone in my pocket.
A do everything app has its purpose. A swiss army knife has it's purpose too. There is as much efficiency as having the right tool for the right job as there is not having to carry every tool to every job.
The original writer wants one app to do everything. So say you actually give him that one app. Guaranteed that at some point they're going to whine that it doesn't meet some new need. People like that are best ignored, same as Musk-Rat and his "do-everything X App."
As for "what you're willing to have with you in that situation" - it's a smartphone. Is there really any limitation to the amount of crap you can load on one nowadays?
Re: Misleading title (Score:2)
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Wow, I thought you were being facetious, but that's literally what he's asking for. All I can think is that the Boxing Day deadline came as something of a surprise to the writer and they had to pull 800 words out of their butt about *something*.
Or maybe this is that vaunted AI-based a
Note-taking doesn't work (Score:3)
Simple Wiki written in PHP (Score:2)
I use a combination of plain text files (in vim or notepad or possibly vs code, usually markdown) and a wiki written in PHP that serves such files and allows you to edit them. Sometimes Google docs too.
For all the load of **** MS Office is... (Score:2)
OneNote is one of those few programs that I have found to be genuinely excellent without alternative. Basically everything else in the MS Office Suite has a competing alternative that is better in some form or another, but I've yet to come up with anything that matches OneNote.
Caveat: I use a pen and tablet. If you are just typing notes then maybe you find something better, but OneNote seems to be a somewhat ideal system for mixing pen and typed inputs along with media (graphics, screenshots, embed files et
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I'll second this. It's in the cloud, and can run on desktop or apps, so easy to access anywhere. I type, and and really appreciate the hierarchical structure - you can have multiple 'Notebooks', each has multiple 'Pages' and each page lets you take whatever notes you want. Great for managing and organizing a bunch of different things. Also handy if you want to quickly get text from one device to another.
My main complaint is in Windows it has a weird copy/paste system, that can copy the plain text in the Not
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Software note taking too distracting (Score:2)
I hate sitting in a meeting (assuming it's an important meeting to have) where people are typing away while someone is trying to talk. It's very distracting. I certainly don't want to be "that guy." For that reason, I always use pen and paper..
For meetings that aren't important, by all means, type away!
Emails to myself (Score:3)
Emails are easy to search later, when you need to recall what was being said. There's no need for fancy formatting, just half-baked text is fine, as long as it communicates. Then, if somebody else needs to know later, it's easy to forward (sometimes with updated sentence structure). Notes are automatically timestamped.
If I'm running a meeting, or if the purpose of the meeting is to gather requirements, I'll write an email to the entire group, reporting my notes. This allows everyone to confirm (if they are so inclined) that what I understood them correctly.
Obsidian (Score:2)
Excellent extensibility. Pure Markdown (JSON for recent Canvas extension, but with an open schema). Simple file setup (just a bunch of files in a bunch of folders on your file system - one .obsidian directory for settings and plugins). Compatible with popular clouds without modification. Available for Mac/Win/Linux/iOS/Android. Free for personal use, inexpensive for commercial/supported/early access.
Not commercially enriched by Obsidian, but it makes a lot of my information life simpler and more fun hence t
Notepad (Score:2)
It's also my password manager
Standard Notes (Score:2)
Standard Notes [standardnotes.com] is where it's at. Multi-platform support, auto syncs across all your devices, auto-save on update. No fuss, no muss. Think of it as Obsidian without the bells and whistles and a more sensible data persistence model. Full encryption and backups on demand.
Cheers!
Depends (Score:2)
Org-mode and Google Keep (Score:2)
Mostly Emacs org-mode. I use it mostly as plain text, but it's super powerful, so it can scale out from there. Markup, easy to use tables, hyperlinks, to-do lists, embedded code, you name it. It can even do things with calendars, though I have never used that functionality.
When I'm on the go, or expect to be on the go, or need to share with others, I use Google Keep on my phone. Much less featureful, but it has the all-important checkboxes that make it convenient for to-do list, shopping lists, and the like
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Me too :P
Standard Notes (Score:2)
Runs everywhere, actually secure. Pretty nice.
Competitors: Obsidian, Notes Nook
I think Standard Notes has the most trustworthy implementation with all encryption and decryption happening on your machine.
Notability (Score:2)
You can take my iPad Pro and notability app when you pry them from my cold dead hands
Tiddlywiki (Score:2)
Self-modifying self-hosting HTML file that supports tags and plugins such as a mind mapper. It's been a godsend for my work notes and tabletop gaming.
MS Word (Score:2)
It works for me. Pun unintended but accepted.
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Long live the Palm (Score:2)
a Palm M125 [wikipedia.org] with unfoldable keyboard. [moxon.net]
Two AA batteries last months, just swap them out with a fresh set when leaving for a conference/meeting and you're sorted. Alternate two sets of rechargeable
Firmware is in rom, no network connectivity by default so no chance of the device being compromised remotely. Should the batteries go completely dead you'll lose all data but that's why you sync what you need with a pc when you get back. If the conference was a bust and there was nothing of value just remove batt
Nextcloud and Notes app (Score:2)
There's also Horde with its notes and to-do apps. The to-do app syncs well via SyncML, so it's possible to use it with Thunderbird and some Android apps that support SyncML. The problem with Horde is it's a pain to install and keep updated, and the community is quite small and getting smaller.
First choose the hardware (Score:2)
Text (markdown) + Utilities (Score:2)
Gedit [gnome.org] (Linux) / TextMate [macromates.com] (Mac) / or an IDE - for viewing/editing
ripgrep [github.com] for searching - faster clone of grep. 'rg -C5 -i "your search" ' would give you any occurrence of "your search" with surrounding 5 lines and case insensitive, which is a near instant way to find something without knowing which file it's in.
git [git-scm.com] for versioning
GitLab [gitlab.com] for syncing/sharing (and viewing since it renders markdown)
pre-commit [pre-commit.com] for linting - lets you automatically run tools on commit such as, e.g., spellcheck, formatting, or anyth
vi(m) (Score:2)
Evernote (Score:2)
Apple vs Universal (Score:2)
If you're in an exclusive, or mostly exclusive, Apple ecosystem, the Notes app is good. A free app that's generally already on all your Apple devices really starts you off on the right foot. If you need to access it from Windows or Linux, you can do so through the iCloud web site.
On the other hand, if you're running a mixture of devices and ecosystems, Evernote may be the way to go. That's what I used for many years. I think it was about $40 a year. It was always stable and reliable no matter what devi
Cherrytree (Score:2)
Cherrytree. Does everything, windows and linux...
Joplin (Score:2)
Typically pen and paper. (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
Always works? That's why I use pencils and not pens.
Too many (Score:2)
I use pen and paper - several notebooks, scraps of paper, post-it notes.
I use vim, I use vscode, obsidian (markdown) , confluence (at work), google docs, TextEdit (on mac)
I use reminders in calendars.
My world is a mess of notes, but somehow, I know where they all are - it's just they aren't searchable.
In the apps where I do have some organisation, that allow for tagging (e.g. obsidian), I find I never end up searching for stuff, because I tend to know where it is I stored something.
Most the stuff I note dow
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Remarkable [youtu.be] and digital note taking.
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Diagramming with something like articy: draft 3. [steampowered.com]